million.â
âTwenty thousand pounds is still a lot of money,â I said. At least it was for me. Twenty thousand pounds, all of it tax-free, was more than many people earned in a year, but for the likes of Ian Tulloch it might just be petty cash.
âThe man might go to the newspapers,â said Charles Payne, another of the independent directors.
âHe wonât,â I said decisively, but I looked around at skeptical faces in front of me. âNot if heâs in this for the money. As I said before, heâll have spent months planning every single detailâitâs not easy, or cheap, to dope every horse at Cheltenhamâand heâll want a decent return for his trouble. Thereâs no way he would give up his trump card so easily.â They still didnât look convinced. âHe probably wants half a million. If he asks you for five million and you end up paying him half a million, then youâll probably all believe you have a bargain, but he, in fact, will have gained everything that heâd hoped for in the first place. Iâd maybe offer him less than twenty grand, perhaps only ten.â
âHow do you know all this?â asked Bill Ripley in a tone that implied he didnât really believe me.
âIâve completed several tours of Afghanistan as an army intelligence specialist. Much of my time was spent dealing with kidnapping in Helmand Provinceâmostly among the Afghanpeople. A child of one of the few remaining middle-class Afghans would be snatched either by the Taliban or, more often, by the corrupt police. The ransom demanded would always be for millions of dollars, a sum way beyond the means of even the richest parents. Offers and threats would pass back and forth until an amount was agreed upon that was acceptable to both sides. Sometimes it was only a few hundred dollars or maybe a few thousand. I was involved in many of those negotiations, sometimes face-to-face with the kidnappers. They were a source of essential intelligence, especially in learning who were our real friends, rather than those who would happily shoot us in the back as soon as we turned round.â
âWhy did you leave the army?â It was Bill Ripley again.
âI didnât want to get killed,â I said. âI did three six-month tours inside four years and I didnât fancy going backâtoo many of the bad guys knew me by then.â
In truth, Iâd been fortunate to get out alive from one particularly hairy situation in an Afghan house when hostage negotiations had rapidly gone tits up and guns had been drawn by both sides, most of them pointing at me. On top of that, a good mate of mine hadnât been so lucky in a similar circumstance and heâd come home in a box.
No one now questioned my assessment of the current situation.
âTell us what to do,â said Roger Vincent.
âPersonally, Iâd probably call in the police. But if you wonât do that and I accept that position, then lets place a notice in the paper and wait for a response. Meanwhile, Iâll try to find out how he did it and stop it happening again at Ascot.â
âWhat do you need from us?â
âI assume from his demeanor that Crispin Larson is aware of the situation.â
âHeâs aware of the test results,â said Roger Vincent, âbut not the letter.â
âIâll need his help to find out how the doping was done. And he should be made aware of the letter. He has one of the best analytical minds I know. We could all do with his help.â
Roger Vincent looked around the table and received a series of nods.
âThatâs agreed,â he said. âBut no one else.â
âWhat shall we tell the staff?â Howard Lever asked no one in particular.
âTell them that you were concerned about a leak of confidential material to a newspaper,â I said, âand you are now happy that the source of the leak has
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